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Skin Modifier Development

49
By on Development

Nicholas Bishop is currently working on implementing an armature based automatic mesh generating modifier. Whilst still in development, it looks like a fantastic way of generating basemeshes for sculpting or creating smooth meshes with arbitrary topology. See the video for a demonstration:

Nicholas Bishop writes:

Currently, the code mainly handles the topology generation with some extensions of my own to nicely handle almost arbitrary topology with loops. I've coded some of the tricky mesh evolution too, but it's mostly non-functional right now.

If I can get the mesh evolution stuff working, this could become a very powerful tool for generating forms; even in it's current immature state it's quite fast and easy to generate basic stuff. Certainly nothing you couldn't do with ordinary edit mode, but a bit faster (at the cost of precision of course.)

One last note, please refrain from sending me links to ZSphere videos and saying "make it do x, y, and z!". Believe me, I'm aware there's more work to be done here, but I don't get paid to write Blender code. A little patience is needed :) Thanks!

For a more detailed outline of how it works, see the paper it's based on:

http://www.math.zju.edu.cn/ligangliu/CAGD/Projects/BMesh/

(Note: The name B-Mesh used in the paper is nothing to do with the blender B-mesh project.)

49 Comments

  2. Blenderificus on

    Wow, just WOW. Fingers crossed this makes it into the trunk. I also hope is PTEX work makes it in there SOON!!!!

    Reply
  3. Kevin on

    I am astounded at the almost daily progress of development going on with blender. This particular feature I would love to play with. Can't wait, awesome, awesome work! Glad I switched over to Blender.

    Reply
  12. dddjef on

    Yes, it reminds me Zbrush too, and this tool is wonderful. But there is a very important point if you want it to be easy usable. This procedural model has to keep Sculpt informations. You should be able to move a Bsphere, go to sculpt and vice and versa.

    Reply
  19. Ignatz on

    This will really be useful for certain mesh constructions. First rate work, sir!

    Let me also take this opportunity to say that I am continually impressed by the creativity and abilities of the fine programmers who add such interesting features to the Blender software package.

    Reply
  21. Tadd on

    Hot snot this is exactly what I wished Blender would have (other than an easier UI :) )

    Yes, this looks very similar to Pixologics ZBrush "ZSphere" but that's why it's great. The ZSphere was what made ZBrush that much more powerful. Quickly build organic meshes. Since it costs my first born I never bought the program, but the trial made me drool and wish I could!

    I hope this gets implemented or just shared. Would come in handy with my multitude of projects.

    And Blender takes yet another step toward professional level production.

    Reply
  22. William on

    Looks fantastic. Can't wait to play with it.

    Only issue so far seems to be the need for adding custom data. And also, because it's procedurally created, I presume it won't work with sculpt mode. 'Tis a shame. You'd have to freeze your mesh first, which means you can't easily add topology or change limb poses.

    Reply
  26. Brian L. on

    All kinds of awesome there, bro! I will take whatever you develop! I'll wait as long as it takes to have this feature! Thank you! Man, this has been a week of amazing improvements to Blender!

    Reply
  30. SolarLune on

    Really great - it seems like a really good idea, and should speed up mesh development by a huge margin. I've never seen this type of technology before, but I've basically only been using Blender for the past few years.

    Reply
  31. todor on

    shush!! Keep quiet... pilgway (3d coat devs) might hear about this and then steal nicola to do it for them.. we will never see it in blender afterwards :D

    Reply
  34. Ivan on

    hey you should send the code to farsthary maybe he can use your code for the fluid meshing system that would be Awesome!!!!!!

    Reply
  39. pixnlove on

    Now if you carry on on this path... You will become a developer for one of these
    big money making company and we will miss your truly remarkable skills...

    This is truly awesome.

    Reply
  41. Bobr on

    Just tried it and it's fantastic.
    An amazingly quick method to build a base shape ready for sculpting (once you apply the modifier), much quicker than the classical way to do it.

    Once it gets bug free (sometime there are holes in the mesh being created) and become stable (i had a few crashes), it will be a brillant Blender feature that digital sculptors will enjoy tremendously to create their base model in no time.

    Thank you so much Mr Bishop for having took the time to implement such concept into Blender, another step to the next generation of really usefull modelling tools.

    Reply

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